Drive Breakthrough Ocean Science And Technology - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Impact Goal

DRIVE
Breakthrough
Ocean Science
And Technology

Throughout human history, the ocean has inspired wonder and sparked imagination.

The drive to explore and understand the ocean's mysteries has spurred innovation and discovery, aiding humanity and transforming societies for the better. Today, ocean science and technology offer unprecedented opportunities to address some of our generation's most pressing problems-from hunger to intensifying storms to energy security.

IMPACT STORIES

Illuminating the ocean's twilight zone

WHOI has spent the last six years exploring one of our planet's last frontiers: the ocean twilight zone. The project has transformed our understanding of the ocean's midwater and highlighted both its vulnerabilities to human impacts and its importance to ocean food webs and global climate.

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Exploring the deep

WHOI is well known for its industry-leading capabilities in deep-ocean exploration and discovery. WHOI researchers have been part of world-changing discoveries, including the first known hydrothermal vents in 1977, the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, and numerous other findings.

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Tracking the future of fisheries and ocean ecosystems

The Northwest Atlantic, renowned for its abundant fisheries, is experiencing rapid warming and other impacts from human activities. Since 2018, WHOI has led an NSF-funded long-term ecological research (LTER) project in the region to identify and track patterns of ecosystem change over timescales ranging from seasons to decades.

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Ushering in a new era of ocean observation

Ocean observing is undergoing a revolution. Advances include "swarm" robotics; small, low-powered sensors; new sampling technologies; and ever-more complex computational models capable of assimilating data from disparate sources. In addition, breakthroughs in observing and understanding ocean life using acoustics, imaging, chemistry, and genomic sequencing offer exciting new possibilities.

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Revealing the role of microbes in carbon and climate

Marine microbes are invisible to the naked eye, yet they play an outsized role in ocean ecosystems and global climate. These single-celled organisms make up the vast majority of ocean biomass. In the surface ocean, they take up half of the carbon captured by photosynthesis on Earth, converting half of that back into carbon dioxide within days to weeks.

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